How To Register For Ap Exam

Wondering how to register for AP classes and tests? Go a complete guide to AP registration hither—even if you're homeschooled or your local school doesn't take the AP program.

How to Register for AP Classes

The AP Registration process varies from school to school. Typically, you go through the regular class sign-up procedure to take APs, every bit long as you lot have taken the necessary pre-requisite classes. For case, many schools require students to accept an introductory biology course before they can enroll in AP Biology. Your school'south course catalog should list the necessary pre-requisites for each AP class.

In some schools, y'all take to laissez passer a placement test to annals for an AP class. For instance, my schoolhouse required students to exam into AP Calculus BC as well equally AP Calculus AB – even if they had taken math up through Pre-Calculus. Based on your test score, you were placed into either Calculus BC, Calculus AB, or regular (not-AP) Calculus.

We recommend asking 1 of your electric current teachers or the guidance counseling office about how to sign up for AP Classes at your school. They tin permit you know if there are any specific protocols exterior of your school's typical registration procedure, like placement tests or class size limits.

If you attend a schoolhouse without AP classes or y'all're homeschooled, you don't have to officially register for an AP course. You but need to register for the AP Test afterward in the twelvemonth (more on that below). It's upward to you to either have a class that teaches well-nigh of the same material (east.g., taking a United States History course if you want to accept the AP Us History exam) or to cocky-study during the twelvemonth.

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How to Register for AP Tests

If You Attend a School with AP Classes

If you're taking AP classes, your AP teacher typically alerts you to your schoolhouse'due south AP exam sign-upwards process. They should inform you of the deadlines to annals for the exam. Some fifty-fifty walk yous through the registration process!

If y'all haven't heard anything from your AP teacher however or are just curious about your school'due south AP test sign-up protocol, rail downwards your schoolhouse's AP Coordinator to discover out the dates and deadlines at your schoolhouse.

AP Coordinator? Who's that? Each school that offers AP classes has a staff fellow member (oft a guidance advisor) who is given this title. It's officially their job to handle AP examination registration and coordinate with the College Board. If you don't know who this person is, either check in with your guidance counselor or one of your AP teachers, they should know.

Keep in mind yous have to register for AP exams through your schoolhouse, there is no way to annals online. (Some students become confused because other College Board tests, like the SAT and SAT Subject field tests, take online registration.)

As part of your registration, you'll turn in the $94 examination fee to the AP coordinator. And that toll is per exam, past the style. (See our post on AP Exam costs to learn about getting financial aid for AP tests!)

If Y'all're Homeschooled or Your Schoolhouse Doesn't Have AP Classes

If you're homeschooled, or you attend a school without the AP program and are cocky-studying, you tin can nonetheless suit to take AP Exams at a nearby participating AP school.

To do this, you'll contact the AP program itself. Contact AP Services no later than March 1st of the year you want to test, and they'll give y'all the names of local, participating AP schools willing to test exterior students, every bit well as the phone number of the AP coordinator at that school.

This is the contact information for AP Services. Remember, y'all have to contact them to become the contact info of a local school that will requite you the AP exams:

Phone: 888-225-5427
International callers: 212-632-1780
Fax: 610-290-8979
Email: apstudents@info.collegeboard.org

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Prepare a listing of the AP Exams y'all are interested in taking earlier you call — this will help College Board observe a school you lot can exam at.

One time you lot get their info from AP Services, telephone call the AP Coordinators at the local school no later than March 15th to fix your testing.

When calling Coordinators to arrange testing, make sure to tell them the following:

That you got their contact data from College Board.
That you are trying to detect a school that volition give AP exams to homeschooled students or students from schools that do not offer AP Exams.
The AP exams you want to take.
If you lot have a documented disability that requires accommodations.

Once y'all locate a school that volition host you, that school's AP Coordinator is responsible for ordering your exam materials, telling you lot when and where to report for the exams, and collecting your fees (which may exist higher than the typical $94 to cover the school'southward additional proctoring or administration costs).

One last thing: your host school must administer the exams for you. The school cannot forwards the AP exams to you lot or your school. That means on exam days, you lot'll take to travel to your host school (and be absent from your regular classes).

I of the single most important parts of your college awarding is what classes you choose to take in high school (in conjunction with how well you practise in those classes). Our team of PrepScholar admissions experts have compiled their knowledge into this unmarried guide to planning out your high schoolhouse class schedule. We'll advise you on how to balance your schedule between regular and honors/AP/IB courses, how to choose your extracurriculars, and what classes you can't afford non to take.

Plan Your Course Schedule

Some Boosted Guidelines for Signing Up

Signing upward for AP classes and tests is usually straightforward. Plus, there aren't restrictions on how many classes yous can take each year (unless your schoolhouse has its own rules). You can take as many AP Exams equally can fit into your schedule. The AP Programme doesn't even require you to take an AP class before taking an AP Examination.

The just brake on registration from College Board is that you can't take both Calculus AB and Calculus BC within the same twelvemonth. This is considering Calculus BC includes all of the material in Calculus AB — yous even get an AB Subscore when yous take Calculus BC!

AP Calculus BC is essentially two math classes in one!

If two of the exams y'all desire to accept are scheduled for the aforementioned time, ask your schoolhouse's AP Coordinator for information about taking one of the exams during the late-testing menstruum. The late-testing menstruation occurs in late May, to accommodate tests that overlap or students that run into last-minute issues like an injury.

In general, popular AP exams don't tend to overlap, so you're more probable to run into this problem if y'all're taking a more niche exam like Art History or Japanese.

On Exam Day

Keep these guidelines in mind to make sure y'all are set to exam in May in one case yous're registered!

You take to bring a valid government- or school-issued photo ID with you to the examination. Even though the test is administered by your schoolhouse, and all your teachers know you, you take to follow this rule. You'll exist turned away without your ID, so don't forget it!

If y'all accept approval from the Higher Board to test with accommodations, you accept to bring your Student Accommodation Letter.

If yous attend a school that doesn't offer AP, you lot should not use the schoolhouse lawmaking for the school where yous are testing. Instead, make sure to employ your ain school's code and then your test score(s) will be reported to your schoolhouse. This ways you demand to get your schoolhouse's six-digit code from your main or schoolhouse counselor earlier examination mean solar day.

If you are dwelling-schooled, utilise the state or international home-schoolhouse/cocky-report lawmaking that will exist given to y'all on the day of the test.

What'southward Next?

Which AP exams should you take? Larn about the hardest and easiest tests, as well as exactly how many AP classes y'all should take.

Too taking the SAT? Learn how to register for the Sat, when you should take the exam for the commencement time, and get a complete report guide.

Going for the Act instead? We take exclusive guides to studying for Act Science, Reading, and English.

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must exist using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for costless now:

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Most the Author

Halle Edwards graduated from Stanford University with honors. In high schoolhouse, she earned 99th percentile ACT scores also as 99th percentile scores on SAT subject field tests. She likewise took nine AP classes, earning a perfect score of 5 on seven AP tests. As a graduate of a big public high school who tackled the higher admission process largely on her own, she is passionate nearly helping high school students from different backgrounds get the knowledge they need to be successful in the college admissions procedure.